Dead Reckoning - Charlaine Harris [52]
While the coffeepot dripped, I almost pushed back the flap of the pattern envelope. But I pulled back my hand. I was scared. Instead I tracked down my address book. I’d charged my cell phone overnight, so I stowed the little cord away neatly—any delay would do—and at last, taking a deep breath, I punched in Mr. Cataliades’s number. It rang three times.
“This is Desmond Cataliades,” his rich voice said. “I’m traveling and unavailable at the moment, but if you’d like to leave a message, I may call you back. Or not.”
Well, hell. I made a face at the telephone, but at the sound of the tone I dutifully recorded a guarded message that I hoped would convey my urgent need to talk to the lawyer. I crossed Mr. Cataliades—Desmond!—off my mental list and moved on to my second method of approach to the problem of Sandra Pelt.
Sandra was going to keep after me until either I was dead or she was. I had a real, true, personal enemy. It was hard to believe that every member of a family had turned out so rotten (especially since both Debbie and Sandra were adopted), but all the Pelts were selfish, strong willed, and hateful. The girls were fruits of the poisonous tree, I guess. I needed to know where Sandra was, and I knew someone who might be able to help me.
“Hello?” Amelia said briskly.
“How’s life in the Big Easy?” I asked.
“Sookie! Gosh, it’s good to hear your voice! Things are going great for me, actually.”
“Do tell?”
“Bob showed up on my doorstep last week,” she said.
After Amelia’s mentor, Octavia, had turned Bob back into his skinny Mormonish self, Bob had been so angry with Amelia that he’d taken off like—well, like a scalded cat. As soon as he’d reoriented to being human, Bob had left Bon Temps to track down his family, who’d been in New Orleans during Katrina. Evidently Bob had calmed down about the whole transformation-into-a-cat issue.
“Did he find his folks?”
“Well, he did! His aunt and his uncle, the ones who raised him. They had gotten an apartment in Natchez just big enough for the two of them, and he could tell they didn’t have any way to add him to the household, so he traveled around a bit checking on other coven members, and then he wandered back down here. He’s got a job cutting hair in a shop three blocks away from where I work! He came in the magic shop, asked after me.” Members of Amelia’s coven ran the Genuine Magic Shop in the French Quarter. “I was surprised to see him. But real happy.” She was practically purring on the last sentence, and I figured Bob had entered the room. “He says hey, Sookie.”
“Hey back at him. Listen, Amelia, I hate to interfere in love’s young dream, but I got a favor to ask.”
“Shoot.”
“I need to find out where someone is.”
“Telephone book?”
“Ha-ha. Not that simple. Sandra Pelt is out of jail and gunning for me, literally. The bar’s been firebombed, and yesterday four druggedup goons came in to get me, and I think Sandra might be behind both things. I mean, how many enemies can I have?”
I heard Amelia take a long breath. “Don’t answer that,” I said hastily. “So, she’s failed twice, and I’m afraid that soon she’ll pick up the pace and send someone here to the house. I’ll be alone, and it won’t end good for me.”
“Why didn’t she start there?”
“I finally figured out I should have asked myself that a few days ago. Do you think your wards are still active?”
“Oh . . . sure. They very well could be.” Amelia sounded just a shade pleased. She was very proud of her witchy abilities, as well she ought to be.
“Really? I mean, think about it. You haven’t been here in . . . gosh, almost three months.” Amelia had packed up her car the first week in March.
“True. But I reinforced them before I left.”
“They work even when you aren’t around.” I wanted to be sure. My life depended on it.
“They will for a while. After all, I was out of the house for hours each day and left it guarded. But I do have to renew them, or they’ll fade. You know, I